A Retrospective Study of Patients with Acute Pancreatitis in an Internal Medicine Clinic

Abstract

Objective:Acute pancreatitis (AP) is the rapid inflammation of the pancreas which may be life threatening, even though the disease course may range from mild to severe. We sought to investigate the characteristics of cases followed with a diagnosis of AP at our clinic.Method:Patients diagnosed and followed with AP from 2015 to 2017 at the Istanbul Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Training and Research Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. Demographic features, etiological factors, duration of hospitalization, antibiotic usage and complications were investigated.Results:Of the 160 patients with AP, 65 (40.6%) were male and 95 (59.4%) were female. The mean age of the patients was 56.2±19.1 years. At hospital admission, fever and abdominal pain were observed in 5% of the patients, abdominal pain and itching were present in 1.3%, while abdominal pain and jaundice were reported in 3.8%. Etiology of AP was defined as gallstones in 42.5%, alcohol in 4.4%, hyperlipidemia in 0.6%, posttraumatic causes (including endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography) in 5.6%, drugs in 3.8%, malignancy in 1.3%, and autoimmunity in %3.8, and the remaining 38% were evaluated as idiopathic pancreatitis. Three patients with cardiac complications were either admitted to the intensive care unit (2 patients) or died (1 patient).Conclusion:Gallstone-related AP was determined to be the most common cause of AP in this study, and idiopathic causes were shown in the second rank. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography should be planned if there is clinical deterioration and cholangitis. Serious complications (such as cardiac) may develop in patients defined to have mild disease. Thus, clinicians must be aware of this possibility and should be on high alert for possible cardiac complications which may lead to mortality or intensive care admission.

Keywords

• acute pancreatitis
• etiology
• retrospective analysis